The Mayor of Clearwater says he’s hoping to have a meeting with the province’s Minister of Advanced Education, Anne Kang, in the new year, to talk about the potential for a new community college in the area.
Merlin Blackwell says that idea has been brought up before, noting it is more pressing now that Thompson Rivers University will be closing its Clearwater office at the Dutch Lake Community Centre on Dec. 31 because of low enrolment.
“You know there is already some talk about a community college coming up this way, which would be a great fit because I think that’s what we need. But its sad to see TRU pull out of Clearwater,” he told NL News. “It was kind of disappointing, another kick in shins, we’ll put it that way.”
“We have seen this pattern happen over and over again, with government offices and community services shrinking back into the city, in many cases, disappearing altogether from our town.”
Blackwell says a community college in Clearwater will help train local workers so they meet the requirements of a changing labour market.
“Local training programs for things like cooking, for first aid all those things that we need for our local workers to get re-certified in and it used to happen here when it was the UCC in the early days of TRU,” he added.
The TRU Clearwater regional office offered credit and non-credit courses, as well as provincially recognized certificates and work-related training in areas like first aid, health and safety, trades and technology and forestry.
Blackwell said TRU’s presence in the Clearwater area had been declining for years noting the region’s coordinator position was never filled after the previous coordinator retired about four years ago.
“We’re kind of looking at that and going, ‘how do we make lemonade out of those lemons?’ and I think we have a way. And that’s what Clearwater does and the North Thompson Valley does, is we pick up the pieces and put it back in a different way and we move on,” Blackwell said.
While announcing it is pulling out of the area, TRU says it has just nine students enrolled in Clearwater in the 2020-21 school year, down from 168 in 2018-19.
“Keeping the physical space is no longer viable, particularly when we consider the budget pressures TRU is facing due to COVID-19, no different than other sectors,” said Dean of Trades and Technology, Baldev Pooni.
He notes however that TRU still plans to have a presence in Clearwater by using short-term rental spaces as needed when the demand arises from the community.
“The pandemic has opened up new opportunities for rural students that didn’t exist before, through access to more virtual learning,” Pooni said, noting TRU has a new Education and Research Centre at Wells Gray.
“We also know students are increasingly taking advantage of virtual and distance learning, including our Open Learning courses [because of the COVID-19 pandemic].”
Blackwell plans to team up with other communities in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District like Barriere – which is also losing its regional office – to write a letter to the B.C. government with their concerns about the university’s reduction of services for rural communities.
